Couple years back, I bought some shitty ass China cane on megaclearance from Cabela's. One of the guys in the Fly Cave (am I making that up, or is it actually referred to as a Cave?) said that Cortland Sylk was the bee's knees for those sorts of rods.
He's right. With a lone "speciality" application, my last four fly line purchases have all been Cortland 444 Sylk DTs. Each one's been fished hard they've all lasted really well, with only one complaint (they crack at the whipped loop every single time, wish they'd do a welded loop).
All, except my last one which cracked and fell apart for about 3' straight, generally about where I figure eight retrieve. And after maybe six months.
So, I complained, and Cortland very quickly, and nicely, sent me a replacement line and didn't ask for the old one back (dual taper, I'm just gonna flip that shit around and fish the other end before I put the new one on). Who can possibly complain about their customer service? It was awesome.
What confuses me though was the use of a German newspaper to pad the box.
The sex classified section, none the less.
Explain.
(update: oh, shit, they did a welded loop, i guess if i wasn't baffled by the packaging i'd have noticed that, go cortland! bet it snaps off in a month)
This shows up when you search "asshole dog." -shrug-
Oh, I know what you're thinking, "some arrogant fishing asshole is gonna cry about us letting our majestic canines play in their stream, well fuck those cock-men-oppressors, we're gonna let Fluffy do whatever he wants, all that guy is doing is torturing fish."
You're wrong, actually. I'm not torturing fish, I can't because your asshole dog is gleefully being an asshole in my vicinity.
Look, its a public stream, and I get that, y'know? I mean, you and your stupid dog (which is technically off leash and thus violating some sort of law that you shouldn't violate because its causing you to piss me off) have the same rights that I do to go all about my day traipsing through the fucking underbrush and into the water, but maybe, just fucking maybe, you can try to respect my shit?
Its not that I walk up and try to sting your pet's ass with a fly, he can't help it that its owner is an ignorant asshole.
And while we're on the subject of assholes who let their dogs in my stream (yes, I said that), I'd like to point out common courtesy that some people at least try to do, but get wrong.
When you let your dog go rushing in and you turn the bend and, oh shit! there's a duder fishing, its cool you call your dog back. I mean, how the hell should you know I'm all lurking in the fucking shrubbery and shit? I like that you try to be respectful and make your monster back off, but just so you know, 30' upstream from me isn't a valid place to let the fucker romp back in.
Line cleaning is a very important topic on FF'ing forums.
You the sort of guy who goes on fishing trips and actually talks about fishing?
Like to trade the awesome new secrets of Liechtenstein style nymphing with like minded, pro-spec and ultra serious fishermen?
Not into strippers?
Don't go here. If, however, a "fishing trip" is an excuse to enter into a multi-day bender without offending your loved ones (excepting those moments where bail bonds may be involved). If you're basically tired of fishing forums having to do with actual fishing and not just being random and stupid discussions with people who fish. If you want to discuss, vocally and with as much colourful fucking language as you can possibly jam into a post, the merits of ketchup-based sauces on meatloaf while maintaining a side bar as to why snowshoe is better than CDC, sweet holy Mother of Fuck, do I have a place for you.
http://www.otflyfish.com: Click the forums link across the top. Make an account. Log in. Post bullshit. Enjoy like minded assholes. Its an Interwebs forum for people who fish, but not really about fishing. Un-like minded assholes need not apply, and you will likely be chased off for sucking. There's places for you, instead.
Its pretty fascinating the amount of hits I actually get for the Heritage Fly Shop. Good that people are looking for something about it, bad that my shit is polluting their minds. So, to try and not be a complete dick I guess I should make it quick to say the following helpful things:
One, there's no website. There's a Facebook page. Someday the universe will figure out that Facebook is out to fuck them and stop using it, but free is free and I get it.
Two, the contact information is on their Facebook page. For those of you who don't use Facebook, because you've figured out they're out to fuck you and stopped using it, I'll reprint the information below:
Heritage Fly Shop2643 Fish Hatchery RoadAllentown, PA 18103610-248-8836
Monday and Thursdays by appointment. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Friday through Sunday 9 to 2.
Three, you guys should totally buy something from the guy because he's just that nice, and while he doesn't have alot of high end shit (why bother, its a small storefront), he does everything you need on the stream (sundries, flies, etc) and what you'd want to tie your own when you got home. He also seems to have a steady assortment of really cool old custom rods that keep showing up. This is not the way to please me as I cannot afford them. Perhaps you can.
If you think he's giving me something, he's not. It would be nice, but I assure you no one actually wants my help. I'm just that motivated to pitch in.
Oh, and if you're wondering about Lehigh Valley sulphurs, the answer is "yes." More on that tomorrow. Or tonight. Or never. I am astoundingly lazy.
I look at the bins upon bins of shit I bought to tie flies with, and I realize I could get by with the following:
One grizzly cape.
An assortment of snowshoe rabbits' feet.
A bag of peacock herl.
A partridge skin.
A hare's mask would be nice, but I seem to be making due with a rabbit skin coz it was only like $5 at the craft shop.
What the hell else does one need? Fine, maybe a pheasant tail, and calf tail for the Royal MF Wulff (I could use snowshoe, I mean...).
But, yet, bins upon of shit.
Nymphs. I tie one religiously, and one because I think it works better yet I never tie them on as to not ruin the magic. Let's deal with the one I tie religiously because, well, its awesome shit. Its the gold ribbed hare's ear. and you fish that bitch anyway you want and it goddamned catches fish.
You also tie it three ways. Wherein upon completiton, its all about how to fish wet flies versus nymphs from a guy who does neitehr well, but loves one and hates the other. And whatever. I can sum that up in like three groups of words.
To say that I'd like to not be at work right now barely scratches the surface of my thoughts.
If I'm lucky, the universe will coincide nicely between the moment between meetings with people I don't care about discussing problems I don't want to care about with an hour long sojourn to the local park where a rising cloud of blue winged olives I do care about will be imitated nicely on a fly rod I thought I didn't care about upon which it turns out that I do.
This is why at 2:38am I was tying four tiny little flies with the first scraps I could find on my desk. There are many things I should be devoting time to. All of these things I do are not among them.
This is a problem. However, I'll continue to put it off one hour at a time.
started because i was irritated with old people. shit, updated this almost weekly for awhile on a quest for free shit which never really panned out. got sick. flirted with death. rebounded. trying to understand fishing without smoking...
let's break for that one.
seriously. you ever notice how fucking boring this bullshit hobby is? fuck my face, part of its joy was sitting on a log smoking a pipe and waiting for shit to happen.
denied. fuck you cancer.
...anyways. whatever. been a year. and change. fuckin eh.
spring. occasional fishing. thinking about completing a rod. thinking about starting the new rod. looking at the new shit then picking up 1930's finest. south bend assures me that in 1939, this fly rod was in fact "dry fly action." i'm pretty sure they lied. wishing like fuck i could smoke on the water. barely updating as not really understanding a need. if it wasn't so much work, i'd fish a silk line.
"Dude, why are you not posticating at blblblblb.com?"
Got banned.
"..."
Yep.
"Why?"
Being a dickhead.
"..."
Well, what, you know its true. I ain't mad, baby, Ike still loves me.
"So, like, can you come back?"
Yeah, although dunno how long it'll last. I am a dickhead. Its better this way. Besides, I made my own forum where I'm free to reign terror on anyone I don't like.
So, there you have it. The rumours of my demise are greatly exaggerated. And, frankly, they're not exaggerated enough. C'mon, prison, cancer, multistate crime spree, eaten by wolves...so many fucking options, and people are posting up whereabouts when they spot me on niche boards? Fuck, does that mean I'm spot burned? Not that I'm not flattered and all to be this interesting to people, but isn't there something more pressing to discuss? Mountain lions, line cleansing protips, the 8'6" 5wt fucking rod of your fucking dreams, or perhaps something interesting like tentkara? I hear its very awesome, all fucking Zen and fucking simplicity and fucking leet as fuck and shit. No reels. That's very different, amirite? That's what makes the difference betwixt a hackneyed fucking cretin and a Zen fucking Monk, fly reel. HOLY FUCK MR MIYAGI WAS A SPIN FISHERMAN!
Well, shit, that just dashed all that shit to the ground. Guess we know what constitutes Zen fucking awesome now, tenkarites... bust out the Zebco, fuckers, its on like Donkey Kong.
Anyways, back to important shit. Me, and my central importance to your universe. I am, btw, going to assume that I'm the hub of your online existance coz I'm a fcukign raging egomaniac like thatthis. See, reference this shit? An entire post about how awesome I am. Fuck yeah, Seaking.
did i sum it up? holy fuck, who cares? if you're against it, no one cares run on with your superiority because you can manipulate line length. if you're against it, no one cares run on with your simplicity spiel.
but here's a hint for the pro-tenkara camp: you'll continue to be a fad/novelty/other derogatory comment for the foreseeable future. because no one here knows about you and doesn't care. four years of sales in america doesn't really mean anything.
however, the more you whine abotu all the bullshit you whine about, the more the rest of the established people will hate you. silently stew in tenkara forums if you must about how people don't get it but please don't try to reign over the rest of us because we don't care.
Left the Valley. The goal was to fish Penn's Creek, of course it rained like a motherfucker up to that weekend resulting in a severely blown Penn's Creek.
A shame, really. It was a parting trip for a friend who was moving to Montana, and he has a special place for Penn's. Me? I don't leave home, so I've never been there. I spent a week prepping up my shit. I tied flies, first time since spring, really.
Didn't use any of them. Stupid October Caddis. WTF am I supposed to fucking do with a dozen size 10 sparkle caddis? Fortunately, I'm ill prepared for shit that's not in the Valley, so I couldn't tie bigger than 10, else I'd be lamenting a dozen size 8 2XL fuckin ESPs.
So, what else do I got? Nothing useful. Fuck it. October is over. Hope you enjoyed it.
Fluff piece first, eh? I engage in an entire spectrum of dumb nerdy shit. Oh, and don't kid yourselves, people, tying little flies out of dead animal bits then obsessively chuckin' em to fish so you can put the fish back is pretty fucking nerdy. Amongst other shit I do, I play role playing games. The real kind, with paper and dice and shit, not that lame computer based shit. My friend, he writes them, which is either more nerdy or more creative, don't give a fuck... He blogs that shit up, and has once asked me to write up a review for a minis game. I did that right here. Am I rad, or what?
However, there's more stuff afoot. Dare I say actual, important stuff for once. The Bethlehem Township commissioners evidently hate open spaces, joy, and life. They do love money, though. So, that pits Bethlehem Township directly against the Archibald Johnson Housenick Estate.
There's a little tract of land that's set aside as a nature preserve or some shit in what's now Bethlehem Township. Seems some lady named Housenick died and left huge tracts of land to the County, the Township, and her church. Seems that there's a movement afoot to take part of that land, build some shitty apartments, and wreck the lovely little patch of unspoilt land by filthing it up.
This post is gratuitous and pointless. Deal. Its my shit, I can make these whenever I feel like it.
The thing is, I can't be assed to take fish pictures. Oh, sure, I tried today. I figured I'd go out and make this momentous sort of gesture in a return to proper fishing, since I'm tired of life kicking my ass around for the last six months.
So, the plan was to do this big presentation all sorts of wonderful visuals of stream life, still life, grab a picture of my first post-cancer troot and be all awesome.
Nope. Never bothered. Honestly, I don't fucking care.
Not that I catch many giant fish, lots of pretty wild ones, sure, but not giant. Still, its not a size thing, lack of them thing, or inability thing, its well... Somehow, I feel that its proper to put them back in the water as quickly as possible after I've jammed a steel hook through their face, drug them through the water, hoisted them out to drown in air as I rip the hook out..a picture, well, it just seems gratituous, no?
So no fish pictures. Fuck, no pictures of anything except a tired one of the shit I dropped on the hood of my trucklet when I was done.
But, whatever. I had a good time. I fished a ninety-six year old Hardy 8' Fairy rod (Hemingway's preferred tool, from what I'm lead to understand) and a seventy-six year old Pflueger 1496 reel swinging leadwing coachmen across-and-down. One hundred sixty-nine years of accumulated fishing mojo in my hand, and a one hundred ninety-six year old fly pattern still worked well enough to take enough fish to keep me amused for the first time I went proper trout fishing since Father's Day.
Thursday morning I received full nephrectomy of my right kidney.
It was growing an approximate 2" tumor across the top of it. They found it as a byproduct of MRI scans during my bout with bi-lateral Bell's Palsy, itself because of Lyme Disease. They assumed it was a cancerous, Stage 1B Renal Cell Carcinoma because it had the outward appearances of such and because that's the cause of my mother's death, which is evidently considered by some to be a hereditary problem. However, official results won't be back until sometime next week from Pathology.
The good news is that they're confident the whole thing has been removed, and no further treatment will be needed for this incident. My light reading says its a 90% Five Year Survival Rate, and while I'm not exactly a gamblin' man, I'd say 9 outta 10 is almost a sure thing, so I'm not sweating it. The bad news is they told me to expect pain, discomfort and to "take it easy" until sometime well into the second month after removal.
You can expect an almost useless blog devoid of useful the past amount of even moderately useful information to continue into the future. Sorry 'bout that.
Update, 9/14: Renal Cell Carcinoma was confirmed to the tune of a ~5.5cm tumor. It has been excised completely, with no signs of spreading outside the margin of the kidney, and no sign of spread via the blood. That's it, boys and girls, I'm clean. Fuck you, love me.
...And so ends another hurricane, with only a little bit of trailing rain and wind left to swing through, but the worst is over.
Y'know, I expected much, much worse. I lose power in my house constantly, as we're a little part of Bedlam who's underground wiring was evidently completed with left over speakerwire from Radioshack. Imagine my surprise when I woke up in the morning to...power!
All that, and nothing ripped off my house. Even my shitty gutters stayed up!
No feeshing today, of course. Not that I expected shit, why should this weekend be any different than any other fucking day this summer?
All the local creeks are blown out, as suspected. Monocacy flooded the piss out of the Historic District again, should've pulled Johnson Dam out like TU's been riding you assholes to do.. pfft! I was also counting on massive rainfall to blow out the step dam in Illick's Mill, but with a mere 2000CFS at crest, it probably won't smash it out like Ivan or Bob or Mufasa or whatever the fuck that last big one was.
At least I can throw out the multiple old soda two liter bottles filled with water and frozen, now. In hindsight, it seems silly except, again, I always loose power. I needed ice, dig? What the fuck, did PPL actually fix this shit, finally? Fuck, I'm bored and my kids are monsters.
Today would be a good day to fly my kite. Yes, I'm aware of how fucking lame that sounds, but seriously, its fun. Fuck you.
Oh, and the lame saltwater posts will resume shortly. Like anyone cares. Hell, I don't even care.
See that video o'er there? That's the first thing I ever got for this nonsense I've been writing.
Well, sort of. It wasn't like in the payola sense (I'm looking your way, Thinkfish!), but, needless to say, it was sent to me and in a turn-about-is-fairplay way, I feel compelled to tell you about it.
You know, PAFlyFish.com does that spring get together, and this year, while observing the greybeards under the pavillion, I was next to a well bearded young lad. And he and I were talking, and it turns out he reads this nonsense, and went on to talk about Minor Threat (IIRC) because I made a random post about Ian Mackaye, and we started talking music. So, this gentle mannered, well bearded lad, he sez to me, "I'm in a band, if you want I'll send you some CDs" and I just sort of figured he was being nice, so I said, yeah and... that was that. He gets my address and then one day in the mail, bam! Free records! Not only that, but free good records! Fuckin' eh, I won't argue with that one bit. Turns out the soft spoken guy with the massive beard and an affection for slow rods and brookie fishing also happens to be the guitarist for a really tight metalhardcoremetalcore (is that what the kids call it?) act. So you know what, I'm gonna turn around and offer up the littlest thing I can, which is web traffic back to Hero Destroyed's FB page and Myspace page, respectively. Now, go buy Throes or the self-titled album. Or both. They'd like that, I bet.
Seriously, though. If you like the metalhardcore metalcore thing, try it out. Would I lie to you? No, the proof is in the damned video up there. Its hard, and incase that lingo no longer applies, that's good, not bad. Kind of like bad was good, or sick was even better than bad, I guess, and now, now the kids say "savvy." Which seems highly stupid when some teenager walks up to and says, "you're the savviest looking dude" (I think he said dude, who the fuck knows?) "I've seen." All because you're wearin' an eyepatch and smoking a pipe. No, seriously. Explain that shit. You can't! Just like you can't explain your sudden desire to listen to more Hero Destroyed. Go ahead, asshole, make with the click.
Now then, shall we continue to actual fishing things? 'Bout time, eh?
(I apologize for shitty photos ahead of time, i wanted to just actually make a post about the topic of note, and not my whining for once, not that I didn't whine like a bitch at the end, anyways.. its what I do)
Its called a PICC line. That's a Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter if you want to be through about it. Its so the medical folks can give you IV medications without constantly jamming a needle into your arm.
You may not recognize the pale, flabby flesh of that arm but I can assure you, it is mine.
So, no doubt if you've read any of the sad saga of my summer, you know what this means... My love affair with Lyme Borreliosis, that's Lyme Diesease to those of you who haven't been intimate with a deer tick, is deepening.
Let's take a break for something a little different, eh?
Actual, usuable advice for the intrepid Interwebs browsers who wander to this blog looking for something entirely off the usual (for what its worth) topic via the Google, or whatever.
Look, weird shit appears in my logs, guys looking for information on Ian MacKaye, information on the Lehigh Valley's best doughnuts (fwiw, El Greco's rocks the best pizza, doughnuts are doughnuts), and the repeated (!!!) searches for alligator dicks.
I'm still baffled 'bout that.
So, God knows I searched lots of junk when I was diagnosed with Bell's Palsy, and well, I'm sure someone will here, too. Let me give that guy, or girl, some useful practical advice.
Oh, and a teaser: There's a better alternative than that bullshit about taping your eye closed. We'll get to that, though...
Superfine 1wt, clicker CFO, and size tiny tricos. Whee?
I'm a bit of a niche angler, I guess. I've always liked the lightest of gear, because I'm happy to fish for little fish. When I was a kid, I enjoyed panfish on my ultralight Daiwa with 4# test, and when I started fly fishing I liked the small-to-medium fish on a moderate flex 4wt instead of the industry standard 5wt, and wanted to keep going lighter.
Through a series of unfortunate incidents, I ended up with an Orvis Superfine Trout Bum 7'6" 1wt at the tail end of last summer. I was sold on it big time.
I spent the entire summer, and part of the fall, walking my local stream, low and clear, and casting dry flies to likely lies. Without being my usual arrogant self, I'd like to say I got good at it. I couldn't wait 'til summer came around again. Hell, I even thought I'd consider getting up for tricos in the morning a time or two. I know our local board is having a get together July 9th for trico fishing on the Little Lehigh, which is a fine way to really announce winky little flies on superlight rods have returned to my life.
Yep, its summer time, except the train has gone off the rails.
Look, I know, I'm basing my entire hateful opinion of you on one small throwaway fluffer article in a local (to you) rag and your website, but work with me here. Its all you've given me.
At best, you appear to be four guys with too much free money and time who decided you could cash in on the current hipster revolution in fly fishing by creating overpriced reels in the line of Abel or Willow, but seemed to miss that one of them offered 25 years of high quality workmanship and the other one...shit, I'm not sure what Willow's got going other than pure, unadulterated beauty.
Evidently, you think that fly fishing should become a young, trendy urban sport, like skiiing (I didn't realize skiing was in fact young, trendy, or urban, but still).
So, this article, it says you're bringing some style to the sport?
. Yes, I'm aware of how fucking lame that sounds, but seriously, its fun. Fuck you.
or the 
album. Or both. They'd like that, I bet. 
